


True Believer

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Fix-It, Garnett survives AU, Grief/Mourning, Harm to Children, Love Confessions, Nightmares, Partial Episode Rewrite: s1e6, Resolved Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-08-10 11:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20134753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: If there’s one thing Charles Garnett has learned never to underestimate, it’s how quickly the situation can go to shit in the middle of the apocalypse. It doesn't matter how bad things are: they can always get worse. But occasionally, every now and then, they can also get better.





	True Believer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideare/gifts).

> Contains some dialogue from s1e1 and s1e6. And as much as I love the show and the turn it took, I will never stop wishing that episode took a different course.
> 
> I loved writing for these two, recip, and I hope you enjoy this fic.

If there’s one thing Charles Garnett has learned never to underestimate, it’s how quickly the situation can go to shit in the middle of the apocalypse. The thriving community of Province Town, the largest and the safest place they’ve seen since Camp Blue Sky, was all but wiped out in less than an hour. No surprise that humans were involved – the apocalypse has a way of bringing out the worst in people.

They’ve seen almost every kind of crazy so far in their hellish road trip to California, from cannibalistic pimps to a former US army general embracing his inner Colonel Kurtz, and now _this:_ Garnett and his people – and damn it, they’re good people; they didn’t deserve to be led into this – bound and kneeling at gun-point in front of a cage crammed full of the dead.

The air is thick with their seething reek, the stench filling his lungs with every breath, so overwhelming he can barely think straight while the preacher offers them a choice which isn’t a choice.

There aren’t many silver linings to be found in this situation, although Garnett has had a lot of practice making the best of shitty situations. Right now though, the only things giving him hope are that Murphy’s missing, and the kid and Cassandra have escaped.

They might be young, but they’re more competent than Garnett could ever have hoped for. More to the point, they’re both survivors, so with any luck, they’ll evaluate the odds and decide to cut their losses. Which is almost certainly what Murphy has already done. Maybe they’ll run into him outside the gates and decide the mission could still be a go. And if that’s too much to hope for – and Garnett suspects it probably is – maybe the kid and Cassandra will make a better job of hooking up than Garnett and Warren did. If they do, at least some good will come of this whole bloody mess.

And while he’s making wishes, it’d be a bonus if the kid could take out the preacher while he’s escaping. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

For himself and the others he’s all but given up hope.

He’s going to die. Nothing new there. He saw his death coming in that deathtrap of a corridor, crushed up against the sealed door, while more people fled towards them, the snarls of the Zs barely audible above the sound of screaming. Not the way he wanted to go, crushed in like sardines, amongst the surge and press of too many bodies, the ripe stink of sweat and terror and decay.

Warren caught hold of his hand and squeezed it, and he couldn’t tell what that was meant to mean, whether it was meant to be reassurance, or forgiveness, or her condolences.

Scant comfort that she was there with him. In that moment he would have given up not only his own life, but the lives of every single person in that corridor, if she could only be outside and safe. Not that he’d ever tell her that; she wouldn’t thank him for it.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that they were both fools for waiting so long to seize their chance, as if either Amy or Antoine would have begrudged them a few snatched moments of joy. Now that they were going to die, it was hard to tell why they’d been so wary. What was it that had scared them? Losing each other? Well, that was going to happen anyway, and they hadn’t even had a chance to explore what they could have been to each other.

Not that he needs to explore that. He already knows. He’s known for a long time.

He wanted to say her name, wanted to tell her how he felt about her, but the mass of people were crushed up against him and he could barely breathe, let alone speak. He set his forearms against the wall either side of her, forming a protective cage with his body to protect her as best he could as people slammed into his back. Warren was staring up at him, and for a moment, despite the snarls, the screams of the terrified people of Province Town, Mack bellowing Addy’s name, and the thrashing of the freshly turned, Garnett could focus on nothing but her. He cursed himself for ignoring his qualms about Joe’s ‘no weapons’ policy, because at least if they were armed, they could have chosen their own way out.

God knows it’d be a better choice than the one Jacob, the smug bastard of a preacher, is offering them now. Garnett exchanges a look with Warren, sees his own fury and frustration reflected in her eyes.

But still he considers it, turns it over in his mind, hoping to hell Warren’s doing the same thing. Anything that buys them a little time, because every moment their hearts are still beating is a reason for hope. Maybe they can convince some of the doubters in Jacob’s flock. Maybe they can set free some of the dead and escape in the ensuing carnage. Maybe they can just butcher the lot of them. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

And then the cultists lead Joe out from the cage, snarling and drooling at the wrong end of an animal control collar, and all Garnett’s maybes, along with any thoughts of accepting the preacher’s offer, are wiped out by his rising fury.

He loved Joe like a brother, Joe whose only crime was to be a little too trusting, and who has now been reduced to a shambling carcass, animated by nothing more than hate and hunger.

He bites down hard on his rage, clenches his bound hands into fists, stares at Jacob and thinks, _I’m going to kill you, you bastard._

"Now don't feel sorrow for the major, brothers and sisters," Jacob’s saying. "Although we stood against the man he was, we take joy in his choice to join the Resurrected. Blessed is the path before him."

Garnett’s fury crystallises into something cold and clear. "What choice?" he spits. "To live with you lunatics or die and become a zombie?"

Jacob’s gaze swings towards him. He’s smiling, but his eyes are cold, evaluating. "I don't know your name, brother," he says and somehow manages to make it sound every bit the threat that it is despite the faux-serenity of his voice. "But I welcome you to the Resurrection Church. With us you will know everlasting joy and peace."

"There was peace here," Garnett says. He can sense Warren stirring beside him, begs her inwardly to keep quiet, to hold her cool; to let him do this and play no part. It’s hopeless; he knows it’s hopeless. There’s no arguing with cult members, and he’s a dead man. He knew it the moment they led Joe out, and he wonders what sort of choice Joe was given, whether he was given any choice at all.

This preacher isn’t stupid. No chance in hell would he have let Joe go on living, and the same is true of Garnett. He was dead the moment they bound his hands, probably Mack too, but Warren and Doc and Addy aren’t obvious threats. If they play it smart, they’ve got a chance. God, he hopes they play it smart.

He raises his voice, but he’s never been one for speeches, not like Redburn was, not like Joe was, and if Joe wasn’t able to convince them then Garnett doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. "This was a good place. This was a safe place. And it can be again. It's not too late. Put down your weapons. Let's live the way that people are supposed to. Helping one another, working together. It's not too late. Put down your weapons. The Resurrected aren't any closer to God than you and I are." As he speaks, he sees Jacob’s smile growing fixed, the glint in his eyes burning colder.

"I envy you, brother," Jacob says, and as the preacher circles around behind him, Garnett’s fury begins to ebb. A strange calm settles over him. This is it. This is his time. And it’s okay; he’s ready. He’s been ready for a long while. "The time for you to walk among the Resurrected is near." From behind him, he hears the sound of a dagger being drawn. Warren cries his name, starts up.

One of the cultists, the one called Eli, strikes her with the butt of his rifle. She crumples, and immediately rolls onto her back, then freezes at the sight of the rifle trained on her. _Don’t_, he begs her, but her eyes are filled with rage.

"I’m gonna kill you, you psychotic bastard," she promises. Garnett believes her.

"Don't you worry, sister," Jacob says. "You won't be far behind your Charlie."

_Oh god, Roberta,_

"Rejoice," Jacob says, and it sounds like the bastard is enjoying himself, "as both of you will walk before me on the road to everlasting life." He brings the dagger to Garnett’s throat.

Garnett speaks, his voice low and urgent. "Listen, Jacob, Kill me, resurrect me, but spare the others." He tries not to look at Warren crouched on the ground, but pitches his voice so only the two of them can hear him. It’s not Jacob he’s speaking to so much as her, begging her not to fight them: to let him die and not intervene. But he knows even before he’s finished talking that it isn’t going to work.

Jacob follows his gaze and he can hear the smirk in the bastard’s voice as he says, "Don't be afraid, brother. I send you to a better place." He readies himself, and Garnett braces himself for the bite of the blade.

"Stop!" A voice rings out from behind them, from amongst the dead. Weirdly, it sounds a hell of a lot like Murphy.

They turn, looking around. The zombies in the cage have gone quiet, parting to allow one of their number to pass through to the front of the cage, not shambling or shuffling, but moving with intent.

And it’s Murphy, of course it’s Murphy, walking amongst the dead like the goddamn king of the zombies. He looks like one of them, too, grey-faced and hollow eyed, and there’s an expression in his eyes that Garnett hasn’t seen before, his customary look of barely-sublimated panic replaced with cold-burning rage. The dead turn their heads away from him as if he’s as bright as the sun.

"If you think the Resurrected are one step closer to heaven," he says, "then prepare to meet your new god." He rips open his shirt, revealing his ruined torso. It’s the first time Garnett’s seen the bites in a while – Murphy’s self-conscious about them and rarely undresses in front of the group. They look worse than before, the edges of the bites discoloured, the gleam of white bone shining through. Garnett has seen them before and even he’s taken aback, but the cultists are stunned into an unnerved silence.

Garnett’s never liked Murphy much – he’s a hard man to like – but his assessment of him shifts a couple of notches closer toward _what-the-fuck_.

What the hell is he? Z or human or something in between? What the hell did they do to him?

Jacob seems to have sensed that his grip on the situation is starting to unravel. "Come, brother. Step away from the Resurrected. That's no place for a mortal human. Come join our flock. All are welcome."

Murphy unlatches the gate with a look of contempt. Garnett tenses, tugging at his bonds, but the zombies in the cage don’t react at the promise of new-found freedom. Murphy closes the gate after him. "Join your flock?" he says, as he shrugs off his jacket. There’s a newfound energy in his voice. "I am not one of the Resurrected." His shirt hangs open, revealing the tattered skin of his chest, and he spreads his arms like Christ on the crucifix. "I'm your messiah."

_Oh, you crazy son of a bitch._

Saviour of humanity or not, Garnett doesn’t know; the only thing he’s certain of is that Murphy is pure 100% unadulterated grifter. He holds forth like a preacher – the fire-and-brimstone sort who can keep the audience clutched tight in the palm of his hand and not let them doubt for a second. His wild eyes gleam white in his grimy face.

"Eight times, I was bitten and did not turn! Eight times, I was infected by their bloody saliva. And yet here I stand before you. And I am here to tell you that _he_–" he stabs his finger at Jacob, "–is a false prophet! For I am the true incarnation of the Resurrected!"

"What the hell is he doing?" Warren whispers to Garnett.

"I have no idea," he breathes.

But whatever it is it’s working. The cultists murmur amongst themselves, exchanging glances, and when Jacob orders the blasphemer killed, Eli starts to raise his weapon and hesitates.

"I can prove it," Murphy says. "I can prove that my words are true."

"Tell us, blasphemer," Jacob says. "How can you possibly prove this outrageous lie?"

Only then does Murphy’s confidence seem to flicker. He hesitates, runs his hand over his newly shorn scalp, and mutters, "I’ll show you."

Garnett stares in disbelief as Murphy opens the gate to the cage and draws out the thing that used to be Joe. He emerges slowly, jaw working as he regards Murphy as an adoring child might view its mother. The gate gapes open, but the zombies within mill around, making no attempt to escape. Still, Garnett feels it, the itch at the back of his neck that reminds him this could all go bad very quickly indeed. As if he didn’t already know that.

"Observe, Ye of little faith," Murphy says. His voice trembles, but all present are captivated, as Murphy grips Joe’s shirt and raises his other hand, bringing his fingers to the gaping mouth. Garnett’s vision is restricted, but he hears the awed murmuring from the cultists as Murphy slips his fingers between teeth still strong enough to sever them in a single bite. Every soul there, living and dead, is staring at Murphy as if he really might be the new messiah. Garnett’s never thought of the dead as anything but empty shells, but there’s something in Joe’s eyes as he gazes at Murphy. He can’t tell whether it’s fear or love or adoration or something else.

"Jesus," he whispers,

"No," Warren says, shaking her head. "Just Murphy."

The moment passes. Murphy pulls out his fingers in relief, but the look of adoration still lingers on Joe’s face, even as Murphy shoves him back into the cage with the rest of the dead. "The Resurrected will not attack me because they love and fear me." He leaves the cage door open, and poses with his arms outspread again. His gaze flicks to meet Garnett’s for an instant before he continues. "Behold my flock. There's your proof, brothers and sisters. Now let us go, Jacob, before my flock resurrects all of you!"

"Jacob, what if he's speaking the truth?" Eli asks.

"He's no messiah. I'll prove it." Jacob nods to one of his people, who comes forward, pulling out a handgun, which she hands to Jacob. "There's one last test for you to pass, blasphemer," he says, and turns, and as he brings the handgun to bear Murphy’s eyes flare wide in shock and he falls back against the cage. Inside, the zombies snarl, beginning to wake up from whatever trance Murphy’s put them in. "A bullet to the heart will reveal the truth."

_Shit._

What happens next happens fast. Warren screams in fury, rising to her feet. She slams sideways into Jacob, and as Eli grabs her, Garnett’s already on his feet, throwing himself forward, towards Murphy. He hears Warren screaming his name, hears the zombies snarling.

Hears a shot ring out.

**Two years ago**

There were times when Garnett couldn’t help wondering if the whole shitty situation was a vast cosmic joke at his expense. Such as now, and how exactly a routine supply mission to another settlement had wound up with him and Roberta Warren shepherding a group of fifteen kids back to Camp Blue Sky. The eldest was thirteen, and the youngest was six, barely young to remember a time pre-Z, but all wore the stunned expressions of traumatised children.

One of the girls reminded him so strongly of his eldest daughter it was physically painful. She sleepwalked too, that kid, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about, and when she stumbled past him when he was on watch the beam of his flashlight had caught on her pallid face, and for an instant he’d been convinced she was his daughter.

He hadn’t touched a drop in days, but he felt drunk as he stumbled towards her, blurting out Grace’s name, and he’d been certain as he cupped her cheek with a shaking hand and tilted her face up toward the light that it’d be her, that she’d found him at last.

But of course it wasn’t her. Just another orphan of the apocalypse. One amongst many. A child with both – or even one – of their parents still living was a rare thing these days.

And if his disappointment burned like wildfire on his face for a second or two, well, she was asleep. She’d never know.

He closed his eyes, took a moment or two to compose himself. Then his eyes snapped open at the sound of a twig breaking.

Warren, watching him with her revolver drawn, the barrel pointed at the ground. There was something about that twig snap that made him think she’d done it deliberately. How long had she been there? How long had she been watching him?

"You okay, Charlie?" Her voice was soft, carefully pitched so as not to frighten the girl. An entire world of meaning seemed bound up in those words.

Garnett knew he’d been falling apart for a while now – self-medicating with alcohol, taking too many risks: _crazy_ fucking risks – but he’d thought he’d finally started to crawl out of the pit of corpses and despair he was mired in. Turned out that once he’d crested that ridge, there was still a hell of a lot further to climb. At least if him hallucinating the face of his dead daughter was anything to go by.

For a moment, he felt ashamed that of all people it should be Warren to see him so messed up, but the truth was he couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have see him vulnerable.

Not like she hadn’t seen him in a worse state.

They’d fought at each other’s side since not long after Day One. She’d been with him on the starvation march north that terrible Black Summer, when millions died in the exodus out of the cities in search of food, and each death had added to the ranks of the dead. Together they’d watched in numbed horror as people crumpled to their knees at the sides of the road, or died slowly and unnoticed on pallets of woven sticks.

To this day, he couldn’t remember anything worse than the frantic scramble to mercy them before they turned, because it didn’t matter how badly starved a person was: when they turned they woke up strong and fast and deadly. That was a desperation he’d never known before or since, struggling to put down a freshly turned Z he might once have called a friend, and with his own strength and reflexes sapped by desperation, terror, and hunger.

It had been a valuable lesson: things can always get worse.

"We got a sleepwalker," he said. "Come on, kid, let’s get you back."

He dreamed about Amy that night. First time in a long while that he could remember, and it was a bad one.

In the dream, she sat hunched on the living room floor with her back to Garnett and Leah, their five year old, cradled in her arms. Bare feet stuck out from under her arm, the soles grimy with dirt.

_You should have been here,_ she was saying, over and over again, her voice shaking with grief. _You should have been with us. Why weren’t you here?_

He wanted to tell her to set Leah down, but his mouth was so dry he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, and Jesus, what sort of father would he be if he told his daughter’s mother to stop comforting their child? And he could still just hear Leah breathing. She seemed to be snatching at each breath, and because he couldn’t bear to listen to that ragged, faltering sound or look at her bare feet, he cast his gaze around the room instead.

Broken glass on the carpet. A man’s boots sticking out from behind the sofa. The cushions smeared with blood. The stink of rot in the air.

Overhead, something thumped against the ceiling so hard the light fitting rattled.

_Gracie’s in her room,_ Amy said. She sounded giddy. Almost like she wanted to laugh. Hysteria. Terror. A broken heart.

And then, as if their oldest had heard her mother speak, there came a crash from upstairs, the sound of something slamming against the inside of a door. Rapid pattering footsteps, then: _slam. _Over and over again. Crashing against the inside of the door like a bluebottle against a pane of glass.

Amy lifted her head, stared at the ceiling, flinching at every bang.

They were fast when they turned, faster than he’d ever thought possible. And putting down children was the worst. He’d learned that first hand, and even then it was different when it was someone else’s kids.

He tried to imagine putting a bullet in the head of someone he loved and couldn’t do it. He reeled away from the thought, sickened by it.

They’d already started calling it giving mercy, the act of putting down the dead. God only knew where and when that had started, some blackly humorous joke from some asshole who’d seen too many zombie movies, but it had caught on, the notion of compassion sitting uncomfortably alongside the bitterest of black humour. At first he’d thought it helped, made it easier to rationalise having to put down monsters that used to be people, but he couldn’t bear it now.

_Put her down, Amy. For God’s sake._

Leah drew her final rattling breath, and in the wake of that terrible sound, there was a moment of frozen silence.

Garnett woke up, gasping and on the edge of screaming, but he was used to waking from nightmares and subsequently clamping down on terror. He breathed hard, letting himself recover, letting his heart slow to a normal pace, as he concentrated on the sounds of the night, the crackle of the fire, the sound of soft breathing.

They weren’t all asleep. A couple were still awake, but none of them looked up as he sat up and pressed the balls of his palms into his eye sockets. He guessed they were used to nightmares, other people’s as well as their own.

The girl who reminded him of Grace was sitting by the fire, arms wrapped around her knees and her chin resting on top of them. Her gaze flicked up from beneath her bangs, then slid back down to the embers of the dying campfire. Garnett resisted the urge to ruffle her hair as he picked his way around the slumbering bodies to where Warren was keeping watch.

She glanced up at his approach. "Couldn’t sleep?"

He shook his head, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "I’ll take over if you want to catch a couple of hours. One of us might as well get some rest."

"Thanks, but I’m good. Could use the company though. Kids okay?"

"The kids are fine." To a certain degree of ‘fine’ anyway. They were alive. He figured that’d have to do.

He was glad she hadn’t accepted his offer. It spooked him, the unnatural quiet of the world these days. With most animal life turned, every rustle in the bushes was a harbinger of trouble. Better to be around people at times like this, and there was no better person than Warren to be around. Warren who smelled of gun smoke and sweat and leather, and who knew him better than just about everyone else. Including himself, probably.

"Amy," he offered in explanation after a while.

"Yeah, I figured."

Warren was too easy to talk to, that was the trouble. He had more shared history with her than with anyone else. She’d seen him at his worst, and it got pretty bad for a while back there, bad enough that he was kind of surprised he was still up and about and breathing. They all had ghosts Warren didn’t speak about hers, much, but Garnett knew enough to know there’d been a husband. Antoine. A fireman, back in Castle Point, Missouri. Almost certainly dead.

Wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to keep his own ghosts to himself, but he’d gotten drunk one night when the nightmares were at their worst. Those were the days when it felt like he kept seeing his dead wife everywhere he looked and all he could see in her eyes was accusation. Warren had offered sympathy and a listening ear and it had all come spilling out of him, all the fear and bitterness and guilt. Warren had listened, let him spill his guts, and he’d never once felt she judged him for it.

He’d given Amy mercy – his qualms about piking her had been stamped on pretty quickly when it came down to it – and he still heard the noises she’d made, the choking snarls of gleeful hunger, could still feel the flecks of spittle striking his face as he gripped her hair and forced her head back. It had torn out at the roots with a sound like ripping Velcro.

He’d already been pretty broken by then, and part of him had marvelled at how strong she was now that she was dead, and at the way her skin bunched up beneath the muzzle of the gun he had pressed against the underside of her jaw, and at how ferociously Leah – Christ, _Leah_ – was gripping his leg, trying to bite him through his fatigues with her sharp little baby teeth. He’d found one of them in his boot afterwards, a stubby little thing with a bloody root.

But things were getting better.

The despair was trying to claw him back, but it was getting better. There were times when surviving was no longer a matter of getting through one hour at a time, and occasionally even times when it wasn’t about getting through a day at a time.

Camp Blue Sky was growing. They’d got good people, a decent compassionate leader in Redburn, who’d seen through Garnett’s numbed despair to give him a second chance. They had people with dreams of the future, even if they weren’t quite at the point of planning for it yet. And a doctor too. Kind of. They were starting to rebuild.

And okay, maybe it was pointless. But if there was a chance that those sparks of hope could keep people going for just another hour, day, week, month, year, then it had to be worth it. It had to be, because if not, what else was there?

"It’s that kid," he said. "The sleepwalker. She reminds me of Grace, my eldest daughter."

"They look alike?"

"No, not really. Just my mind playing tricks on me."

"Yeah, they do that," she said.

He thought of the moment when he’d climbed the stairs. With every couple of steps he took, a body slammed against the inside of the bedroom door, and in between he heard the muted thud of bare feet on carpet. Amy had jammed a broom up beneath the door handle, and every so often the handle would twitch, rattling against the head of the broom. Inside the room, something made a sound, a little like the whining of a dog.

Garnett remembered this as the worst moment, standing with his hand pressed against the door on which the name ‘Grace’ was spelled out like an epitaph in purple and lilac and pink. He felt a brief moment of helpless surging hope. His wife and his youngest daughter were dead on the carpet of the downstairs living room, and he’d argued with Amy about that damn carpet, the worst argument of all their married life, like all the minor quibbles and resentments building up over the years were a fuse and that carpet the match placed to its tip. He’d wanted to get something cheaper, she’d wanted to invest their money in at least one luxurious thing that’d last for years, and they’d raged at each other over it, the stupidest pettiest argument, which had culminated in the two of them barely speaking to one other for almost two days until they realised what idiots they were being. And now the money they might have saved was worthless anyway and the carpet was ruined and those two days of icy silence and monosyllabic grunts were a memory of how much time they’d wasted.

No god could be that cruel, to take his entire family. Not Gracie, he thought, and a helpless, hopeless certainty sparked into life inside him. Maybe he’d got it wrong. Maybe Amy had shoved Grace into her bedroom and jammed the door closed to keep her safe. _God let that be true. Please God._

He pressed his forehead against the wood while something snarled on the other side. He could hear it brushing against the door.

_I’ll do anything, _he had thought. _Not Gracie too._

Warren was watching him now, her eyes filled with warmth and sympathy. "It’ll get better, Charlie."

He drew a breath, straightening up. "It already has. This is just..."

"A set-back."

"Yeah." He curled his hands into fists. "God, I miss them."

She took a swig from her water flask and offered it to him. He swallowed it down – the water was warm and brackish water, but it eased a knot in his throat he hadn’t been aware was there.

"You miss Antoine?" he asked as he handed the flask back. She looked away and he regretted asking almost at once. He grimaced. "You know what, that’s none of my business..."

"Every day." Her fingers played at the neck of the flash as she recapped it. "I envy you sometimes, knowing."

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "I’m the luckiest man in Camp Blue Sky." Their eyes met, and there was a flash of hurt in hers. "Damn it, I’m sorry."

Warren was already shaking her head. "No, I’m sorry. Everything you went through, everything you lost… I can’t begin to imagine."

She really couldn’t, but she was right; it did make it easier in a way. His heart had already been torn out of his chest. He didn’t have to spend every day holding his breath waiting for the day they were taken from him. He didn’t know how they did it, the ones who still had somebody. How could they live each day knowing what might be coming? He didn’t have anything left to lose; he’d already lost everything he ever loved.

Well, almost everything.

It felt natural to lean against Warren in search of human contact. And maybe she felt the same way, because she slipped her arm around his back, pulled him close and rested her head against his. She glanced at him and caught his eye and for a long aching moment he couldn’t look away. They were so close he could feel her breath against his lips.

He’d taken a couple of the women in camp to bed, all impersonal encounters through mutual agreement. The women were getting much the same thing from them that he was looking for from them: a chance to bury bad memories and heartache in a few snatched moments of pleasure, and afterwards they’d move on with no hard feelings and no strings attached.

It wouldn’t be like that with Warren. They’d fought side by side, saved each others’ asses more times than they could count. They were more to each other than familiar faces seen around camp. There would be, very definitely, strings attached.

And they were supposed to be on watch. Fifteen kids in their care, and he was already painfully aware how the odds of getting all fifteen back to Camp Blue Sky in one piece were stacked against them.

Bad idea, he thought, and clearly Warren agreed, because they peeled away from one another. A painful knot of regret tightened in his chest. He was grateful for the darkness, how it hid his look of disappointment, but then he thought of Amy huddled over Leah’s body, of himself standing with his hand pressed against the door to Grace’s bedroom, lying to himself about how his daughter might still be alive,

He hadn’t lied to himself like that in a while, but he tried it now, told himself that maybe now just wasn’t the right time, that Roberta might want more from him than a meaningless fumble that would almost certainly ruin their friendship and working relationship. That maybe they both just needed some time to figure out what this was.

She reached up without looking at him, brushed her thumb across his cheek.

He was crying, he realised, and not like it was the first time he’d cried for his family, for the world, for the countless dead – for those who’d died quick and bloody, or slowly from starvation, for those who turned and for those who were piked quick enough to be spared that final act of cruelty.

And he wondered who was going to be the one to pike him when his turn came.

* * *

Not quite a year later and Camp Blue Sky was gone, another casualty of the fucking apocalypse. It had been pure luck that he and Warren weren’t there when it was hit, all thanks to Lieutenant Hammond’s arrival on the river with the man he was shepherding to California in the hopes of bringing about a cure for the zombie virus. Garnett thought calling that a pipe dream would be a polite way to put it, but hey, whatever gave people hope. And there was no doubt that the Z bites on Murphy’s torso were persuasive. Even Garnett, cynical as he was, couldn’t help but wonder.

There would come a time in the not-too-distant future when Garnett would look at Murphy and ask himself if the zombie swarm that brought down the camp might not have been entirely coincidental, but right now there was nothing but the high school in Sleepy Hollow and the butchering of the dead. Because of course Hammond’s rendezvous had been overrun, and recently too, which meant that the dead were fast.

There was nothing like it, not once he got started. The weight of the hammer in his hand, the way the impact travelled up his arm as the hammer stoved in a skull, splattering blood and brain matter with every swing. It was like a dance. Like the best kind of sex. And he lost himself in the act of killing, barely aware of the baby screaming, of the man called Murphy cringing in the corner. For a little while, there was nothing but this, and the letting go of his fear, of the man he used to be.

As if mercy was something that could ever be found at the wrong end of a hammer blow or even a bullet.

Garnett never had been a believer. Not in the early days of the end of the world, and he sure as hell wasn’t a believer now. He was nothing like Roberta. She really did think of it as mercy, as their sacred Eighth Sacrament, but then she always had been a better woman than he ever was a man.

It was too easy to lose yourself in this new world, to dehumanise them, think of the dead as nothing but decaying meat and too-sharp teeth. You had to a little, otherwise all you could see was the people they were, and that was a fast track to letting this world break you, and goddamn, had he been down _that _road before, but there was a middle ground, and the trick was finding it. Some days that was easier than others.

_Swing. Crunch. Splatter._

The last Z dropped, its skull already splintered inwards, and he chased it with multiple hammer blows, fuelled by rage.

Came back to himself, breathing hard and exhilarated. His lips were sticky, hot with fluid, his heart pounding hard against his ribs. He was barely aware of Murphy easing away from the wall, moving towards the baby carrier that held one of the few survivors they’d found.

Murphy squatted down, tilting his head. "Huh. Kid finally shut up."

_Oh god, no._

"Get away from there." He shoved Murphy away from the baby carrier, thinking – _knowing_ – that the child had turned. Thinking of a child’s tooth, cupped in the palm of his hand. He still had that tooth somewhere; one of the few possessions he’d kept safe and carried with him through the apocalypse. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do as he dropped to his knees, because the only thing he knew for certain was that there was no way in hell he’d be able to use the hammer on a baby, but relief surged through him when he saw the child wasn’t dead. It was weak, but still clinging on. It was a survivor, this kid.

There was a reward in the newfound caution and wariness in Hammond’s expression when he came back in, staring at the Zs scattered like broken dolls around Garnett, at the blood and hair and brain matter encrusted on the head of the hammer. Redburn had worn much the same expression a long time ago, until Garnett made it clear he wasn’t looking for power and never would be. He’d led too many people to their deaths already; all he wanted was to be someone else’s lieutenant, and if Redburn was dead, and by now Garnett was fairly sure he had to be, it looked like Hammond would have to do.

Roberta gave him a sympathetic glance as she followed Hammond inside. _It’s okay_, he wanted to tell her and sound like he meant it, _it’s fine._

Of course, it wasn’t even remotely okay. And nothing could ever be fine again. Something which he was about to get a refresher course in, because as it turned out the baby wasn’t as much of a survivor as Garnett had hoped. And neither was Hammond.

* * *

They camped for the night near a stream. Garnett took watch by the water, his back pressed against the trunk of a tree, relieved to get away from the others for a while.

They’d picked up a couple of strays at the high school where Hammond had bit it, a girl they’d found locked in a cage for reasons she was... well, cagey about, and a kid who struck Garnett as way too young to look so comfortable with a sniper rifle, and who so far hadn’t said more than a couple of words. From what he had said, his voice had the cracked hoarse sound of someone who hadn’t spoken in a while, and he’d called Garnett ‘sir’. Doc had vouched for him, and if the kid was damaged – and almost everyone was these days – he seemed to have come out the other side.

And then there was Murphy. Jesus, _Murphy_. What the hell were they going to do with him? What the hell was Garnett thinking, agreeing to escort that walking bundle of snark and bitterness all the way to California? When it had taken Hammond the best part of a year to get Murphy to New York State from Maine? They were screwed. They were _so_ screwed, and right now the theory of the whole mess being a cosmic joke at his expense was looking more likely by the day.

He heard footsteps, glanced up to see Warren approaching. "The kid caught some fish."

"Looks like Doc was right about him," he said. "He tell you his name yet?"

She shook her head, sat down beside him. "That girl though, Cassandra? She’s hiding something."

"Yeah, I think so too. But who isn’t these days?"

"Ain’t that the truth."

"I would have done it, Roberta," he said after a few moments of silence. He couldn’t look at her as he said it. "The baby. I would have mercied it."

"I know. I’m just glad you didn’t have to do it on your own." She caught hold of his hand, squeezed it, gave him a pointed look. "At least _you_ wouldn’t have been stupid enough to go and get your ass killed by a damn baby."

"Poor bastard. Of all the ways to go." He lifted his water bottle, wishing for the first time in a while for something stronger than water. "To Lieutenant Mark Hammond."

"To Hammond."

They swigged in one. He swallowed down the water, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he found Warren watching him. "You, uh… you still got a little something..."

"Yeah?" He gave his blood-splattered face a quick dab with his sleeve, looked back at her straight-faced. "Did I get it?"

Something about the way her face crinkled up, how she bit her lower lip trying not to laugh. It felt like sunlight streaming through the clouds after a long cold winter. Warmth blossomed in his heart. It was almost enough to make him forget the weight of the hammer in his hand, the way he could still kind of feel the jolting impact in his bones. "Oh yeah," she said. "All gone." They glanced at each other, and both had to stifle a laugh.

She’d found a pack of baby wipes, must have swiped them from the baby’s mother back at the high school. They’d mostly dried out but she spat to dampen them, and wiped him off gently, like a mother cleaning her kid’s face. He tried to smile at her and leant back against the tree, the bark of the tree rough between his shoulder blades.

"Are we really doin’ this?" she murmured, keeping her voice low so the others didn’t hear.

"Looks like."

"All the way to California? With _that_ guy?"

He didn’t answer her. Instead he reached up and caught hold of her wrist. "I don’t want to do it, Roberta," he told her, his voice so soft she had to lean forward to hear him, so close her forehead was almost touching his.

"You don’t want to do what?"

"To lead them. We’ve been down that road before. We know where it ends."

"There is no one else, Charlie." Her hand cupped his cheek, making him look at her. She raised her eyebrows, making sure he was paying attention. "If I could take that burden from you, I would."

"Yeah, over my dead body."

Her eyes darkened. "That’s not funny."

She was right. It really wasn’t.

* * *

And then there was Castle Point, Missouri.

For a while it was kind of embarrassing, how it seemed so obvious that his entire life had been leading up to this moment, cruising at the wheel of a borrowed fire truck with a warm breeze streaming in through the open window. How everyone must have known he was secretly a little regretful that they couldn’t risk the siren because it would draw every Z in a fifty-mile radius right to them, and even so part of him thought it would still have been kind of worth it.

For once Warren didn’t even try to insist on taking a turn driving. Maybe that was just because she was still shaken at what had happened in Castle Point, but right now he preferred to think it was because she was content to watch him revelling in finally accomplishing the dream of the five year old boy he’d once been. He knew she was watching him. He could see her in the corner of his eye, and he didn’t need to look at her to know she was smiling. He also knew that if he looked directly at her she’d spook and look away. So instead he stole glimpses, kept glancing her way, never quite catching her eye for more than a couple of seconds, knowing she was doing the same to him.

For a while she didn’t talk about what had happened, and at first he didn’t pry. He didn’t think he needed to. But afterwards, not far out of Castle Point, the shock and the adrenaline wore off, and he realised his hands were shaking. He pulled the fire truck over to the side of the road, swung the door open and jumped down, heard Warren saying his name behind him. A Z was coming his way, one that was little more than leathery scraps of flesh clinging to a walking skeleton and he mercied it with a swing of the hammer without breaking his stride. His terror at the thought of losing her, his fury at how she’d barricaded him inside the cellar, returned in a rush. She’d left him helpless. He’d prayed in that storm cellar for the first time in a long time, begging God to intervene, and either God had been listening, or Warren really was just that tough, or they’d gotten lucky. Really freaking lucky.

Behind him he heard Murphy saying, "What’s up with our fearless leader?" and a chorus of voices telling him to shut the hell up, chief among them Warren’s. Garnett laughed, and leaned forward, hands on his knees, feeling like he wanted to puke. Brain matter dripped from the head of the hammer onto the cracked asphalt.

"What’s wrong, Charlie?" Warren’s voice came from behind him, calm and quiet.

_Damn it,_ he thought. _Keep it together._

He straightened up, casting his gaze over the bleak, flat landscape, the fields that had long gone to seed. There were a few Zs wheeling in slow circles towards the road, but they were far enough away, and spaced far enough apart, to be no threat. When he turned, he’d composed his expression into a smile, stifling his anger. It wasn’t that hard really; he was less angry at her than at himself for taking her to Castle Point in the first place. Not like he’d reacted much better when he’d lost his wife. He should have known better. He should have known what they might find there and how she might react. "I’m so mad at you right now."

"Oh."

"What the hell were you thinking, Roberta?"

"It was..." She shook her head, lifted her hands from her sides in a weary shrug. "...just something I had to do."

"You could have died. It was a freaking miracle you survived."

"A miracle’s exactly what it was." She sounded so serious that his anger began to ebb.

He hesitated. "Did you..."

"Antoine’s gone," she said quietly.

Garnett went still. "You’re sure? Did you see him?"

She shrugged. "I don’t know what I saw, but I know he’s gone. I think I’ve known it for a while." 

The kid’s sniper rifle rang out, and out in the fields left to go fallow a zombie crumpled. They both ignored it.

Garnett exhaled, all his anger leaving him in a rush. "Goddamn it, Roberta, I’m sorry," he said, and pulled her into a hug.

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

He pulled away, holding her upper arms. "Just... promise me you’ll never risk your life like that again."

"That’s a difficult promise to make these days."

"For me, Roberta," he said, and brought his hand up to her cheek where there was a streak of engine oil. He wiped it with his thumb, smearing it along the cheekbone, trying not to notice how she leant into his touch. "No more stupid risks. Promise me."

"No more stupid risks," she agreed, and Garnett was taken aback, because he really hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

After that things changed between them. There’d been something developing for a while now, but after Castle Point, it was like the last remaining impediment had just been kicked away, and all they were waiting for was the right moment or some kind of catalyst.

They kept touching each other. It was never deliberate, and it wasn’t like it was anything new, either. They’d fought back to back in a fire storm with zombies all around them, huddled together in a ditch for shelter from a thrown grenade. They’d stitched each other up and watched each other’s backs while they were bathing, but nothing had never felt as intimate as waking in the back of the truck to find her asleep against him, her head resting against his shoulder.

He kept reliving the moment he’d gathered her up in his arms after the tornado had passed, certain she was dead and too dazed and furious to give a damn that she’d turn at any moment. It had caught then, the spark, flaring into life the moment he realised she wasn’t dead, wasn’t even hurt aside from a few superficial cuts and bruises. She clung to him and he pressed his face into her hair, while the wreckage of her house and her old life lay scattered in pieces all around them. She’d taken the destruction pretty well, given the circumstances.

_Well, now you know, _he’d thought, and her fingers had entwined with his as he helped her up, and she leaned in close and whispered, "Thank you," in his ear.

He’d forgotten what it felt like, falling in love.

**Now**

  
It happens so fast.

Warren slams sideways into Jacob as he takes aim at Murphy. Eli grabs her from behind and throws her to the ground. Garnett’s already on his feet, flinging himself forward, and in that moment, with time slowing to a near-standstill in the flood of adrenaline, his eyes lock with Murphy’s.

Garnett isn’t a believer. He hasn’t believed in anything since Day One, not in God or in giving mercy, or in the Eighth Sacrament, or even in their chances of finding a vaccine, but he _saw_ Murphy slide his fingers into the jaw of a Z. He saw the dead part like the Red Sea and let Murphy pass through unharmed. And whatever else Murphy might be, he did try at the end to save them, risking his own life in the process, even if he looks like he’s kind of regretting that now.

Murphy’s no messiah, but right now, for the first time in a long time, Garnett _believes_.

He believes in Murphy.

He launches himself forward, throwing himself between Murphy and the gun that Jabob’s bringing to bear. And he’ll never be able to tell which comes first when he finds himself looking back on this moment in the days to come – whether it’s the muzzle flash from Jacob’s gun, or the crack of the sniper’s rifle. The two shots, to him in that moment, seem almost instantaneous.

A flower-burst of scarlet unfolds on Jacob’s robes, knocking him off balance at the instant he fires. His bullet strikes Garnett in the shoulder. It spins him, slams him to the ground. He gasps with pain in the dirt, the breath crushed out of him.

Warren’s screaming his name. Feet stampede around him as the zombies break from whatever trance Murphy’s been holding them in and surge out of the cage.

Murphy squats beside him. He stinks of the dead, a strange sour rot that isn’t quite decay seeping out of his skin, and this close Garnett can see just how bad those bites are, how the skin around them is blackening and dying back.

Murphy huddles beside him, and Garnett can’t tell who he’s trying to protect: Garnett or himself. Staccato bursts of gunfire punctuate the screaming. A zombie drops beside Garnett, starts hauling on him, teeth snapping together in hungry, chattering bites of anticipation. Murphy rises up, and it first snarls, then cowers away, before its forehead bursts open in a spray of blood. Warren, kicking the zombie aside, falls to her knees beside him. "Charlie? _Charlie_?"

"Roberta..." He fumbles for her hand. "Get out of here. Take Murphy and go."

"It’s just a flesh wound," she says, and he chokes out a laugh, because flesh wound or not, it hurts like hell. Pain streaks along his arm and down his chest, radiating out from his shoulder. The world is bleeding, seeping black at the edges. He can feel himself sinking backward as unconsciousness rises up to claim him.

"We gotta get out of here." She flings his arm over her shoulder, bringing him unceremoniously back to wakefulness. He shakes with the pain, breathing through his mouth, sucking in each breath, as Murphy takes his other arm, and together they haul him to his feet.

The compound is in chaos, bodies sprawled across the ground, the cultists fighting to get the situation under control. The truck is waiting for them outside the fence.

"Stop!" It’s Jacob, his voice shrill, raising the gun. He’s weaving on his feet, but the hand gripping the gun is steady enough, as steady as it needs to be at this distance. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the–"

That’s as far as he gets. A zombie, and Garnett, sagging against Murphy and Warren, sees with a dazed and bitter sort of amusement that it’s _Joe_, sprints up behind the preacher in two loping strides and leaps on his back. It snarls, buries his teeth into Jacob’s throat, worrying at his flesh. The preacher screams and fires wildly behind him. The first shot misses, but the second bullet sheers off half of Joe’s cheek and sends him flying backwards. He’s on his feet almost at once, but the sniper rifle rings out, and Joe drops. As for Jacob, the damage is already done. The wound in his throat ragged and bloody and as good as a death sentence. He’s frantic, the whites of his eyes showing as he grasps at his neck, blood pumping through his fingers. He has scant moments before he turns.

"Time to join the resurrected, jackass," Murphy says.

Jacob’s terrified gaze darts towards them. His mouth works, then he begins to scream. "Oh God, help me, give me mercy!"

It’s Warren who steps forward, shifting Garnett’s weight as she takes aim. She doesn’t voice the Eight Sacrament, doesn’t even call it mercy, but he knows in the moment before he passes out, that it’s what she’s thinking.

She’s a better person than he is. She always was.

* * *

It’s a blur of pain and morphine-fuelled images from them on: the back seat of a truck, or lying on a metal examining table that he thinks is in a veterinary surgery. Doc looms above him, digging his fingers into his shoulder, and it’s agony, but he’s alive; he’s alive.

He dreams of Joe, whom he loved like a brother, and who’d saved his life multiple times over, and not just from the Zs. Joe who’d been the first person to give him something to live for, even if it was something as simple as keeping going until things got better, because they had to get better.

At the sound of a gunshot he wakes up, finds himself lying on a grimy mattress in the back of the pick-up truck. He lies still for a moment, waiting for the screams, for the snarls of the Zs, but there’s nothing, only a distant bellowing voice. He tries to sit up, cries out in pain when his shoulder erupts in agony, and then there’s Doc’s voice saying, "Hey, now, easy there." Carefully, he helps Garnett ease up into a sitting position. "Thank God, you’re awake. We were really starting to worry. Here, drink this." Doc hands him a grimy glass. "Moonshine. We’re running real low on morphine."

Garnett sniffs it cautiously, then knocks it back in one, and a wave of burning heat hits the back of his throat and surges down his gullet. "I heard gunfire."

Doc shrugs. "Ain’t nothing to worry about. Just your everyday post-apocalyptic zombie-shooting contest. Kid might actually have a shot at winning."

"Warren and the others?"

"Gone to trade. We’re all out of painkillers, and running low on antibiotics. Could be a tough couple of weeks, but I think you’ll get through it. You’re one tough son-of-a-bitch, Garnett."

He sits up, his shoulder a searing mass pain, breathes through it, slowly, through his nose, stares out across what looks like a parking lot filled with vehicles in drastically differing states of repair to a low squat building. "Where the hell are we?"

Doc’s grinning. "Welcome to the FU-bar, brother." He glances up. "And, oh hey, Warren and Murphy are back." He cups his hands around his mouth, calling, "Hey guys! Guess who’s awake."

There’s footsteps then, the scuff of boots on metal and Warren swings herself over the side of the pick-up and drops onto the metal beside him. "Charlie? You scared the shit out of me." Her eyes are swollen, like she’s been crying. "We promised, no more stupid risks."

"You promised, not me." Her hand’s resting on his chest, pressing him down. He likes the weight of it, the way it holds some implicit promise. "Besides, it was worth it."

"Saving _Murphy_?" But she’s smiling.

"He did the same for us."

"Oh please." Murphy leans over the side of the pick-up. "You’re gonna make me cry." But the sarcastic tenor of his voice doesn’t match the expression in his eyes. "Hey, Garnett..." He hesitates, various emotions warring on his face before he finally gives up and shrugs. "Y’know."

"Yeah," Garnett says. "You too." His strength is giving out, and he drops his head back onto the mattress. "And it was worth it," he says dreamily. "A thousand times over."

"Okay, that’s definitely the last of the morphine talking," Doc says. "C’mon, Murph, let’s go give the kid some moral support and let these two have some privacy."

And then they’re gone and Warren’s smiling down at him, her hand on his cheek. She bends down to kiss him and her lips taste of moonshine, and for the first time the pain in his shoulder eases away completely and there’s nothing but her lips on his, slow and careful, like she’s afraid of causing him further damage. Then she breaks off and presses her forehead against his. Her eyes are closed. He can feel wetness on his cheeks, thinks maybe he’s crying, and then realises the tears are hers.

"I thought we were going to lose you," she says. "I thought _I_ was going to lose you."

_Same._ But they’re both still here. And something else has changed; the certainty he felt about Murphy back at Province Town hasn’t faded. It’s still there, stronger than ever. It’s a strange feeling, believing in something again after so long. Weird, but good.

"I love you," she whispers.

Garnett closes his eyes, smiling. "I know."

There’s a moment of perfect pin-sharp clarity. The crack of a distant rifle shot sounds, followed by a ragged cheer. Warren pulls away, and Garnett opens his eyes, meets her gaze.

"I’m going to pretend you’re still delirious," she says, "and that you did not just say that."

"Oh thank god," he says fervently, and she laughs even though her eyes are filled with tears. Her fingers comb through his sweat-dampened hair. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, tough and dangerous and a survivor, and all the more beautiful because of that.

The pain is a distant thing, receding to the back of his consciousness. It’ll be back; he’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s got something to live for now. They all have.

"I love you too, Roberta. More than anything. I have for a long time." He brings her hand to his lips, kisses her knuckles, the hollow of her calloused palm which tastes of sweat. "And we’re going to save the world."


End file.
